Death trick

8

On Monday morning I went to the office and checked my service-no calls-and my mail-no check from my "check is in the mail" former client. I made an appointment to meet the Blounts at one, then phoned Margarita Mayes to find out if she'd had a safe, uneventful night. Irritated, she told me she had, and that Chris would be in touch. I explained that patience was not one of my two or three virtues, rung off, then drove down to police headquarters on Arch Street in the Old South End.

Division Two headquarters looked like an Edward Hopper painting of an American police station in the twenties, plain and solemn in the sunlight, with tall windows set in a heavy brick facade and a sign hanging out over the street corner that said POLICE. It sat back to back with and was connected to the newer Albany Police Court building on lower Morton, presumably to facilitate the speedy dispensation of justice or its South End equivalent.

I was directed to a second-floor office, where I found Detective Sergeant Ned Bowman typing out forms on an old Smith-Corona. He had on a black sport coat and brown slacks, and his face, which had the usual human features placed here and there on it, was roughly the color of the institutional green walls around him.

Bowman lost no time in showing me his winning personality. "Yeah, I've heard of you," he said after I'd introduced myself. "You're the pouf."

"What ever happened to 'pervert'?" I said. "I always liked that one better. It had a nice lubricious ring to it. 'Faggot,' too, I was comfortable with. The word had a defiant edge that I liked. 'Fairy' wasn't bad-it made us seem weak, which was misleading, but also a bit magical, which was wrong, too, but still okay. 'Pouf,' on the other hand, I never went for. It made us sound as if we were about to disappear. Which we aren't."

"Don't count on it," he said. "What do you want?"

"Billy Blount."

"So do I. He killed a man."

"Maybe not. There are other possibilities."

"Sit down."

I did.

"Who hired you? Who thinks I'm not capable of delivering Blount?"

"His parents. They thought I'd have access to places and people you wouldn't."

"They would be wrong. I know quite a few of your people."

"Hustlers, drag queens, and bar owners. Your gay horizons are limited."

"You mean there are more of you? I'll be goddamned."

"Don't you read banners? We are everywhere."

"Not here. Not yet."

"Don't count on it."

He leaned back in his swivel chair and peered at me. "So. You've got Blount waiting outside in a taxi. Found him under your bed. Or in it."

"He's not in Albany. I'm reasonably certain."

"And where would you be reasonably certain he is?"

"I don't know yet. I want to deal."

"I won't need that. But talk to me."

I said, "I'll bring him in, and then you and the DA go easy on him until I locate the guilty party.

Just don't rush it."

The lumps and openings on his face rearranged themselves randomly. A feeble smile. "There seems to be this opinion rampant in certain quarters that Billy Blount is nothing worse than a wayward lad who could stand a good talking to. Get sent to his room with no supper."

"The DA?"

"My own opinion is that he's a fucking screwball who stabbed a man to death. I've got evidence, and it's going to court. If, after he's found guilty, somebody wants to toodle Blount on out to Attica in a limousine with a full bar, I won't object. Just so the little creep gets locked away from society for the rest of his natural life. That's my opinion. That's my intention."

"Your evidence is circumstantial. Why do you call him a screwball?"

"He's taken a human life. Even the life of a queer has worth in God's eyes. See? I'm a liberal."

"I hope you'll come and speak at the next Gay Alliance meeting. You can increase the number of your already-countless gay friends. What evidence have you got that Jay Tarbell won't have a jury guffawing over? Blount was seen leaving Trucky's with Kleckner a few hours before it happened. That's it. Anything could have happened in that time."

"We've got this." He opened a drawer and held up a reel of tape. '"He's dead-I think Steve is dead.' It's Blount's voice."

"Who identified it?"

"The Blounts, Mister and missus."

"Swell, good for them. So many people don't want to get involved these days."

"And when we have Blount, we'll get a voice print and nail it down."

"The newspapers say you have the weapon. Were there prints?"

"There were."

"Blount's?"

He frowned, looked at his reel of tape.

"Ah. So. Whose were they?"

"We don't know." He put the tape back in the drawer, slammed it shut. "They're not on record."

"Diabolical devil, that Blount. He wore somebody else's hands that night."

"What the fuck. He held the knife in a towel, in a handkerchief. Who knows."

"That sounds awkward. Maybe he brought his mittens along."

"Screw you, faggot. Whoops-pardon if I got you hot."

Oi. "And the doorknob. When you got your picture in the paper, you were pointing at Kleckner's doorknob. A meaningless photogenic gesture, right?"

He laughed.

"You've got no case," I said. "And sooner or later you're going to have to admit it. Better now than when Jay Tarbell goes to work on you in Judge Feeney's courtroom. Also, there's the matter of another psycho out there who could kill again. Why wait?"

He sat for a moment looking thoughtful and a little bewildered. Then: "Tarbell won't be a problem. Not much, anyway. He's already been talking to the DA about a deal. That's not Jay's style, and I don't get it. Though if Jay assumes his client's guilty, who am I to argue?"

The fine hand of the deranged Blounts again. I said, "What sort of deal?"

"Put him in a psycho ward instead of the slammer. I get the impression Feeney's in on it. My guess is, they've already got some country club all picked out. Personally, I won't go for it. Not that my opinion's been asked."

An idea came to me that froze my innards. I didn't say it out loud. Bowman might not have disapproved.

I said, "It'll be useful to get Billy Blount's perceptions of these events. That's what I'm after."

"We agree on something."

"You've paid a call on Blount's friend Huey Brownlee. I take it you're aware somebody came through his window Saturday morning and went after him with a knife."

"I saw the report. A burglary attempt."

"It was the second knifing of a gay male in a week's time. There could be a connection."

"Sure, and there could be a connection between Watergate and the French and Indian wars.

Relax, Strachey. Those people in that neighborhood slice each other up at the drop of a welfare check. I know. I've seen it. This was some junkie after your fag pal's twelve-hundred-dollar sound system. Believe me."

"You're quite the keen social observer, Sergeant."

"Thank you."

"You've also been to see Margarita Mayes."

"The lez."

"You found her roommate's name on Blount's phone book."

"Her girl friend. Did we leave that phone book behind in Blount's apartment? How slovenly."

"And an eighth of an ounce of grass in the fridge."

"Blount's refrigerator was boring. His homicidal proclivities are not. Who let you into that apartment?"

I fed him his line. "The lock fairy."

"That figures."

"Is Chris Porterfield in Mexico?"

He looked at me. "I can't tell you that."

"I'll tell you what I know," I lied. "Well trade."

He said, "You go first."

"All right. The morning of the killing, Blount borrowed money from someone for plane fare."

"How much?"

"A good bit."

"Who from?"

"I'll hold that for a while."

"Don't. You'll be committing a felony."

I said, "Maybe Chris Porterfield."

"Unh-unh."

"You don't know that."

He looked at me sullenly, regrouping the topography on the front of his head again. "At the time of the crime, you might as well know, Christine Porterfield was in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She entered Mexico on September twenty-sixth." He held up a telex printout. "I received this Friday at two o'clock. It took my federal colleagues three days- three days- to establish that simple fact."

"And she's still there?"

"Now you tell me something, you know so goddamn much about this. Which airport did Blount use? Not Albany. We checked that. Where'd he fly out of?"

"La Guardia."

"What time?"

"Around nine."

"A.M.?"

"A.M. The same day. Is Porterfield still in Mexico?" "She departed Cuernavaca October second."

"Three days after the murder." "Correct. She flew back to Albany by way of JFK." "She's here now?" "No."

"Where then?"

"First this. How did Blount get to La Guardia? Not by bus. Not by train. How?"

I said, "He was driven."

"Who by? The person who lent him the money?"

"Yes."

"Aiding a fugitive, abetting a felony, accessory to murder. I may have to lock you up, Strachey."

He reached for his phone.

"Idle threats. Anyway, with me loose I'll continue to add to your non-too-encyclopedic knowledge of this case. And in one week I'll have Kleckner's killer." This was a bit fanciful.

"Well, maybe two."

He put the receiver down. "Add to my knowledge right now, Strachey. I think I can stand you for another ten minutes. Well, maybe five."

"If I'm not mistaken, it's your turn. Where is Chris Porterfield?"

He said, "I don't know."

"You know that her roommate lied about Chris's still being in Mexico. Why don't you bring her down here and work her over with a rubber hose?"

He looked at me stonily. "I may yet. That's not a bad idea."

"But you won't really have to, because you know that…" I cocked my head and waited.

"Because," he said, "I happen to know that on October fourth, two days after she returned to Albany from Mexico, Chris Porterfield flew to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and rented a Hertz car for a thirty-day period, the car to be returned at Cheyenne airport, and that the car has not yet been turned back in. So, Strachey, you are now in possession of privileged official information. It's your turn."

"Ask away."

"Who lent Blount the money and took him to La Guardia?"

I knew I'd come to regret this. I said, "Alfred Douglas. Sometimes known as Bowsie. Or Al."

"Who's he?"

"A hustler. Hangs out at the Greyhound station. I don't know where he lives, but your undercover guys could ask around down there at two or three in the morning."

He wrote the name down. "A hustler who owns a car?"

"He borrowed it from an uncle."

"Uncle?"

"A client. Trick."

"How much did he lend Blount?"

"Two hundred forty dollars."

"Jesus, I'min the wrong line of work."

"I doubt it. Your Cheyenne colleagues are on the lookout. for the Hertz car, I take it."

"They are. What else do you know?"

"You've got it all."

"You're lying."

I stood up, clenched my teeth like Bogart, and said, "All right, copper, I've had about all the abuse I'm going to take from you!"

He looked up at me with his plate of potatoes and said, "No, you haven't."